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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27425500">see our reflection in the water</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/renquise/pseuds/renquise'>renquise</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hades (Video Game 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 01:07:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,907</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27425500</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/renquise/pseuds/renquise</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’re burning up, lad. More than usual, I mean.” It’s a weak jest on Achilles's part, but Zagreus laughs.</p><p>His skin is scalding, and it’s not the usual bright, rolling warmth that Achilles is familiar with. Zagreus is always warm, quite literally aflame with vitality, but this is—different. A hectic, impossible heat, not that of a hearth fire, but that of a sun. It speaks of god-given gifts, of both power and affliction: a boon not sitting well within his skin, perhaps the remnants of mortality from his mother rebelling against an excess of power.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Achilles/Patroclus (Hades Video Game), Achilles/Patroclus/Zagreus (Hades Video Game), Achilles/Zagreus (Hades Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>563</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>see our reflection in the water</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>listen i just love the relationship between achilles and zagreus so much </p><p>set sometime after achilles and patroclus are reunited!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I’m told there are fish in there,” Patroclus says to Achilles, his bare feet hanging in the river. “Your prince often hangs a rod in that eddy. Last he came, he left with a carp flopping in his tunic.”</p><p>Achilles grins. “I have often wondered how they survive the journey.”</p><p>The green weeds wind around his ankles, waving in the current. The days spent in Elysium with Patroclus still feel faintly unreal. To sit here with him and watch the river pass by seems unthinkable in its simple joy. </p><p>They discovered together that there was a warm pool in the grove, its surface almost steaming with heat. Achilles had teased him for not discovering it earlier, but Patroclus shrugged and said that he had never been brave enough to venture close to it. For fear of forgetting, he did not say, and Achilles’s chest swells tight, thinking of untold years that Patroclus spent alone with the river at his back. He tells Patroclus as much.</p><p>“Not alone, I suppose,” Patroclus says thoughtfully. “There was your prince soon enough.”</p><p>Patroclus nods towards a figure at the opening of the grove staggering through the foliage.</p><p>"Ah, there he is now. I thought he'd be along soon."</p><p>It’s strange to think that Patroclus knows Zagreus in his own way, a rapport of their own built over the course of Zagreus’s escapes. When Achilles told Patroclus of his escapades, Patroclus smiled and said that it sounded very much like what he knew of the prince.</p><p>"Ho, stranger. No fishing today?" Patroclus calls to Zagreus.</p><p>Zagreus startles, then makes his way across to them. He has his sword in hand, hanging loosely in his grip. </p><p>“Sir,” he says. “Ah. No.” He looks into the river, shifting from foot to foot. </p><p>There’s something strange in his demeanor. Achilles frowns. He shakes his feet of river water and comes towards Zagreus.</p><p>His eyes look glassy, feverish. There's a faint sheen of sweat at his throat.</p><p>“Lad, are you well?” Achilles comes to him and places his hand against his neck, feeling his pulse. Zagreus’s mouth parts, his eyes falling closed. Pressure against Achilles’s palm as he leans into it.</p><p>His skin is scalding, and it’s not his usual bright, rolling warmth. Zagreus is always warm, quite literally aflame with vitality, but this is—different. A hectic, impossible heat, not that of a hearth fire, but that of a sun.</p><p>“You’re burning up, lad. More than usual, I mean.” It’s a weak jest, but Zagreus laughs.</p><p>“Really? I’m, I’m fine.”</p><p>He’s seen Zagreus carrying wounds. It’s familiar, as unfortunate as it is, but Zagreus never seems diminished by them. This is different. </p><p>It speaks of god-given gifts, of both power and affliction: a boon not sitting well within his skin, perhaps the remnants of mortality from his mother rebelling against an excess of power. </p><p>“Zagreus. There’s something wrong, isn’t there? Is it hurting you?”</p><p> As soon as it leaves his mouth, Achilles knows that it isn’t that. Zagreus isn’t afraid of pain: thrives on some part of it, even, if Lady Megaera’s considering glances are to be believed.</p><p>“No, it—” Zagreus swallows, looking away from him. </p><p>His eyes flick to Patroclus at his side, tracking the both of them.</p><p>“I allowed Ares’s touch on me,” Zagreus says at last. “Something new. Maybe another god was involved? It’s—gods, am I truly hot? It feels cold, colder than the surface, than Demeter herself. It makes me something I don’t recognize. I’ve, I’ve tasted Ares’s battlewrath before, but this—I don’t know, sir. It has a hold on me. It scares me.”</p><p>Achilles’s blood goes still in his veins. He’s never known Zagreus to be scared: frustrated, yes, sad, yes. All his emotions are laid bare, for better or for worse. But scared—that, never. </p><p>Patroclus’s hand upon his shoulder. Achilles blinks up at him, leans into his steadying touch.</p><p>Zagreus’s face goes blank, a placid smile sliding over his face. </p><p>He lifts his sword-arm, and it’s only familiarity with his body, his movement that makes Achilles dart back. The edge of Zagreus’s sword misses his belly by a breath. Zagreus shifts forward, bringing him close again to Achilles in a blink. Achilles blocks his thrust with his spear, sweeps his blade off to the side.</p><p>A breath, and Zagreus’s empty hand comes up to rest on Achilles’s neck. His eyes are cold, considering: gemstones in a bare skull, bereft of life. </p><p>Patroclus knocks Zagreus to the ground, pinning his arms behind his back. Zagreus’s sword thumps onto the thick elysian grasses.</p><p>“Stranger. I think you would regret that.”</p><p>Zagreus seems to register where he is. He jerks up, only to stop at Patroclus’s grip. “Oh. Oh, gods.” </p><p>Achilles crouches by him. He puts a hand to Zagreus’s cheek, as though he could anchor him with mere touch.  “Zagreus. What was that? The boon?” </p><p>“Fuck. Blood and darkness, Achilles, did I harm you?”</p><p>Zagreus is looking at him, stricken. It isn’t as if Zagreus hasn’t landed blows on him in practice bouts. But this is different.</p><p>“I would count myself happy as your teacher if you were able to best me, lad,” Achilles says, aiming for lightheartedness and missing by several spearlengths.</p><p>“I didn’t—forgive me, sir, I just—wasn’t there.” His face darkens. “No. No, I was there, and I wanted to do it, and, and I don’t know why.”</p><p>Achilles puts a hand to the back of Zagreus’s neck, giving him a light squeeze. The hectic god-touched heat of his skin is still unsettling, as though Zagreus’s skin is barely enough to contain it. He cannot imagine what this gift would do to a human, if it feels thus to a god.</p><p>“Take faith that I will not allow you to hurt me, at least.” He gives Zagreus a light shake. “I can’t die again, lad. You can’t do anything to do that hasn’t already been done.”</p><p>When Achilles had first washed up on the cold shores of the Styx, he had felt like no man at all. A rabid dog put down, perhaps, grief flowing into all the empty places that rage had occupied in his skin. But Hades’s son, brash and lively, liked dogs. Accorded respect and warmth to him when he least deserved it. </p><p>He has no claim to Zagreus. But seeing Zagreus in this state makes him want to defy the gods. To say that they will not have him on their high shining promontory, in their cold, unsparing light, not if they seek to use him thus. </p><p>He gathers Zagreus into his arms, and Zagreus’s breath shudders out of him as he leans into him. His breath on his collarbone is too quick. </p><p>“Don’t let go of my hands. Please. I don’t know what I would do if—” Zagreus presses his wrists into Patroclus’s grasp, restless. “I should go. I won’t have you pitying me, sir. I’ll be fine. Just—one of you run me through, quick and clean, and it’ll be fixed once I float up the river, I’m sure. I would ask Than, but he hasn’t found me this time.”</p><p>Achilles isn’t sure that Thanatos would do it, even if Zagreus asked it of him. The lad hates to see harm come to Zagreus by any hand, let alone his own. </p><p>“There must be another way, stranger. You’ve come this far,”  Patroclus says, far calmer than Achilles feels. “You renounce the gifts given to you sometimes, yes? How do you do that?”</p><p>Zagreus looks askance at the passages leading out of the glade. “There are fountains, sometimes. I bleed it out there.” </p><p>Achilles looks to Patroclus, but Patroclus shakes his head, more familiar with the Elysian plains than he. “None of them nearby.”</p><p>“Make a cut across my palm. Maybe it’ll take,” Zagreus says, a little desperately.</p><p>Achilles looks to Patroclus. Patroclus settles Zagreus into Achilles’s hold, then reaches for Zagreus’s sword. He picks it up, then hefts it for a moment, an unreadable expression glancing over his face. </p><p>Achilles thinks he understands. To raise a god’s own blade against him seems absurd in its hubris. If he were slain, Zagreus would return to the river as always, but Achilles cannot help but think it could be more than that. </p><p>A god of life, slain by his own sword at the hands of a mortal shade: is that not the stuff of story and song? It is frightening to even consider. The trust that Zagreus is offering up to them feels unthinkable in its divine scale. Achilles would call it recklessness characteristic of Zagreus, but it feels more dangerous and fragile than that.</p><p>Patroclus raises the sword and makes a shallow cut across Zagreus’s outstretched palm, crimson rising in its wake.</p><p>“What do you feel?” Achilles asks.</p><p>“Nothing,” Zagreus says miserably, after a moment. “I don’t think it’s going to work.”</p><p>“Unfortunate,” Patroclus says. Still, Patroclus looks thoughtful, determined: a familiar look for his beloved countenance. It makes Achilles’s heart glad to have him here in the midst of this mess. “If we made your blood quicker, perhaps?”</p><p>Zagreus’s brow furrows. “I’m not sparring with you like this.”</p><p>“There are other ways we can go about that.” </p><p>Patroclus comes close to Zagreus again. </p><p>“Would you permit me to kiss you? If the idea is impudent or unwelcome to you, you need only say. I know that I am not one of your usual partners, but I would be glad to offer this to you.”</p><p>Zagreus blinks. His mouth opens and closes a few times. “I. No, it’s definitely not unwelcome.” </p><p>He looks over his shoulder to Achilles. “Er. Sir, is this okay?”</p><p>Achilles nudges him into Patroclus's hands. "It's worth a try, lad."</p><p>Patroclus cups the edge of Zagreus's jaw. His fingers brush the falling laurels in Zagreus’s hair, as if curious. Achilles knows that the fallen leaves feel like a sunbeam held in the hollow of your hand, that a lick of flame flares up when you blow on them as you would the banked embers of a fire.</p><p>Zagreus leans into Patroclus's touch, then pulls back from him, looking nauseous. Patroclus removes his hand at once.</p><p>“What is it?”</p><p>Zagreus swallows, once, then twice. “It’s not you. It’s just—the boon, Ares’s touch. It. It just told me how I could snap your neck. Told me how easy it would be.”</p><p>By the look of Zagreus’s hands clenching restless, it did more than that. Perhaps even made him feel the resistance, then the sudden give of a vertebrae displaced, a body going limp under his hands. </p><p>Patroclus’s face softens. “We have you, stranger. We’ll ensure this goes as it should.” </p><p>Patroclus reaches for him again, allowing him the space to shy away. But Zagreus leans into him, offering up his bared throat, the lithe lines of his body.</p><p>Patroclus sweeps his thumb under Zagreus’s jaw, tilting his chin into his touch. His hands are firm and sure, and Zagreus sags into the touch, as if glad of the guidance. </p><p>The sight of Patroclus drinking deep from Zagreus’s mouth is a heady one. Achilles knows the way that Patroclus kisses: with intent, slow and methodical and all-encompassing. He wonders if Zagreus has ever been kissed thus. </p><p>Zagreus moves with Patroclus’s touch, opening up to him with an appealing sigh. His wrists flex against Achilles’s light grip, his restrained hands flexing against Patroclus’s chest, tangling in Patroclus’s cloak. </p><p>The slow trickle of blood from Zagreus’s hand glows, as though shot through with gold. </p><p>Zagreus’s eyes snap open. “Oh. It’s working.”</p><p>Patroclus nods, a smile touching his lips. “Good. Let us help you, then.”</p><p>Patroclus guides Zagreus to face Achilles. Zagreus’s lips are kiss-reddened, the mortal-red blood of him high in his cheeks and the tips of his ears. His laurels are bright, scattering in golden embers around his shoulders. He’s lovely.</p><p>He remembers every time Zagreus rushed up to him hot-blooded and still smelling of iron after another failed escape, eager to share his findings, and finding himself just as eager to hear of them, a proud conspirator to the prince’s endeavours. And one after the other, glass bottles of nectar, still warm from being held against Zagreus’s body. </p><p>He had been afraid, when he had tried to gently turn Zagreus away: afraid of the maw of grief that yawned still within him, afraid of exerting too much influence on a boy eager to please him and to make him proud, afraid of doing both Patroclus and Zagreus wrong. </p><p>It didn’t stop him then from loving this young god, from wanting him close and well. </p><p>And here, now: Zagreus needs him, wants him. Patroclus is here, at his side. Both their forms familiar and dear to him, each of them beloved in their own way.</p><p>Patroclus looks at him, his gaze steady. </p><p>Achilles puts a hand to Zagreus’s jaw, meeting his eyes. Blood-red and spring-green.</p><p>“Are you sure, lad?” </p><p>“Sir—ah, Achilles—if you don’t feel comfortable with this, it’s fine. I can already feel that the edge is blunted? It’s manageable. But I would be honoured if—no, that sounds really odd. I would love to kiss you, Achilles, if you would be so inclined. I only wish that it wasn’t because I’m, er, trying to disembowel you under a god’s unfortunate influence.”</p><p>There’s an appealing shyness to Zagreus’s upturned glance, a hint of his usual vitality rekindled. </p><p>“Achilles,” Patroclus says. An entreaty. “Beloved. Your prince needs you, and I am here for you. Please don’t allow me to die again of old age waiting for something to happen.”</p><p>Achilles laughs, and bends to meet Zagreus’s willing mouth.</p><p>Zagreus melts under him, hesitant, then eager, desperate. Achilles steels himself, wondering if the god’s touch might pass to him, dreading the bright, clear madness of bloodlust. But there is only Zagreus’s warm, tentative mouth, and Patroclus at his back, his hands steadying him. </p><p>Old warriors with old blood on their hands, embracing the young god of life with those self-same hands. It seems absurd, almost.</p><p>Zagreus sighs into the kiss, his exhale heated. His mouth recedes to the familiar warmth of a hearth as the hectic heat bleeds out of him bit by bit, gold spilling down his wrist. He lets go of Zagreus’s wrists, but Zagreus makes a protesting noise and laces his fingers with his. His other hand winds into Achilles’s hair. Fondness blooms in Achilles’s chest. Elysium is ever-mild, always in the wild throes of spring, and yet Achilles finds himself warmed by Zagreus.</p><p>When he pulls back, Zagreus looks a little thunderstruck, a little mussed and entirely appealing.</p><p>“There. Is that better?” Patroclus says. “If not, we can try again.”</p><p>Heat blooms in Achilles’s face, and he feels Patroclus smile against his skin as he draws his hair aside and kisses the nape of his neck. Once again, Patroclus knows him entirely too well.</p><p>Zagreus laughs, the sound bright and relieved. “I mean, I would be happy to. I. Uh. I’ve been thinking about doing that for a long time.” He fidgets. “I should maybe be going, though. I don’t want to take up more of your time.”</p><p>Achilles smiles. “We’ve got all of eternity, I believe. That’s thanks to you, lad.”</p><p>Zagreus’s face goes serious: the expression transforms him, turning his bright youth timeless and divine. “It’s the least I could do for both of you.”</p><p>“Still, we thank you.” Patroclus sweeps his cloak aside and kneels to him, takes his hand to kiss it.</p><p>Zagreus flushes, bending to take Patroclus’s forearms. “Oh, gods, sir, don’t kneel to me, please. I ought to be the one thanking you, especially now.”</p><p>Patroclus straightens. Zagreus takes him by the hand and kisses him, then Achilles: a parting kiss of equals, as if they were not shades and he, a god.</p><p>Zagreus bounces on the balls of his feet, then bends to take up his sword once again. “Whew. Thank you, both of you. For everything.”</p><p>“Don’t forget your customary plunder, stranger,” Patroclus calls to him as he heads towards the chamber doors. “I would hate to hear that Theseus got the better of you after the removal of that gift. Come back soon, but not that soon.”</p><p>Zagreus wheels back, laughing, and takes the gift that Patroclus hands to him. He squares his shoulders before the passage from the grove, and then his familiar form disappears into the foliage, lost in the diffuse light as the doors close.</p><p>Patroclus leans into Achilles's shoulder. He’s silent for a long moment, looking out over the river.</p><p>“It’s heady, isn’t it? Knowing that a young god trusts you so, is willing to put himself into your hands? Us two, mere shades and old warriors.” Patroclus’s voice is low, disbelieving.</p><p>“Yes,” Achilles says. “Gods, yes.” </p><p>Patroclus is silent once more. The cloudy waters of the Lethe roll gently by them. When he again speaks, it is with conviction. </p><p>“I thought I had suffered enough of gods for several lifetimes. This one, though—this one, I think I would fight for.”</p><p>Achilles ducks his head, smiling. “True. He is easy to love.”</p><p>Patroclus takes his hand and squeezes it, guiding him to the muddy banks of the river. “Come. He left me a fishing rod, last he came. There must be something in this river, unless he’s been very much mistaken this entire time.”</p><p>Achilles laughs and settles by him.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><div class="children module" id="children">
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